The present invention relates to an electric gas lighter which may be used, for example, on the gas range of a gas cooker.
Electric gas lighters for producing sparks to light burners on the gas range of a gas cooker are known, and normally comprise a lighting circuit fitted underneath the gas range and for generating the sparks; and one or more hand-operated switches for activating the lighting circuit.
More specifically, the lighting circuit is connected to a power line having a neutral line and a phase line supplying alternating voltage, and comprises two enabling terminals, one of which is connected to the neutral line.
The normally-open hand-operated switches are connected in parallel between the enabling terminals of the lighting circuit, and, being hand-operated by the user, are formed on the flame-regulating panel of the gas range. Push-button switches are normally used, and are preferably activated by the flame-regulating knobs which, when pressed, close a contact to allow gas flow through the respective burners.
Known gas lighters have several drawbacks. In particular, since the hand-operated switches are located some distance from the lighting circuit, each must be provided with two wires for electric connection to the enabling terminals of the lighting circuit. Consequently, the lighting circuit must be provided with two terminals for connection to the respective wires and is therefore unduly bulky and complicated to produce. Moreover, the presence of two wires between the lighting circuit and hand-operated switches makes it difficult to assemble the lighters to the respective burners.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a gas lighter designed to eliminate the aforementioned drawbacks, and which, in particular, is compact, is cheap and easy to produce, and can be fitted easily to a respective gas range.
According to the present invention, there is provided an electric gas lighter comprising a lighting circuit for generating sparks at at least one burner; said lighting circuit being connected to a power line supplying a supply voltage, and having an enabling terminal for enabling spark generation when connected to a reference-potential line, or disabling spark generation when floating; characterized by comprising hand-operated switching means having at least one first terminal connected to said enabling terminal of said lighting circuit by a connecting line; and at least one second terminal connected to said reference-potential line.
The hand-operated switches are connected to the reference-potential (ground) line by simply connecting the second terminals of the switches to the gas range, so that connection to the neutral line of the power line is no longer required, and only one wire is required from the lighting circuit to the hand-operated switches. By only requiring one enabling terminal to connect the control terminal of the controlled switch to the hand-operated switches, the lighting circuit is therefore more compact and easier to produce; and, there being only one wire between the lighting circuit and the hand-operated switches, the gas lighter is easier to fit to the gas range.